I thought I'd seen WWII done in just about every possible way, but this is the first time I've seen a movie involving German soldiers traipsing through the Polish/Russian countryside gathering information on partisan cells. If only it were done better, and without the ridiculous plot, I'd have been very interested, but it went wrong almost from the start. Terrible screenplay, horrible weird accents, silly love triangle plot etc & etc. While watching it I didn't realize the small part of the rabbi was played by Roy Scheider, who I thought had died before this movie was made, and it amazed me that the actor was so much like that great actor, and at how well the part was being played in such an otherwise poorly acted movie. I caught Scheider's name on the closing credits. A pity such a fine performance was wasted in such a poor movie. Saw this under the DVD title 'Hearts of War.' Thankfully I bought it for a dollar.

Is the subject exhausted or inexhaustible? It doesn't matter, because there will always be made new films on it anyway, as new stories of experience never cease to turn up. The matter is both exhausted to a point of being overrun to over-exertion, while at the same time it remains hopelessly inexhaustible.

The main thing to observe here is the character of the film, as the main character is a poet, a German general's son, who not only has great doubts about the war but who downright hates it, and who finds some poetry in a situation at the beginning of the war when the Germans find themselves struggling with partisans close to the Russian frontier, where ha finds a Jewish girl with whom he falls in love which happens to be mutual, and they make love for real in the middle of the war. Not until after their passion spent they learn who they are, she being the daughter of a Jewish rabbi and he being the son of a German general.

The interesting thing is the many personal conflicts which result from their finding each other, leading to the phenomenon that the personal conflicts appear to grow greater than the war conflict. He is posted in the forest area of the frontier to spy out the partisans and find out their number and strategy, which is a very dangerous mission, being a German soldier and having to pose as a Polish partisan himself. She finds herself in a similar necessitated double role play, really loving her German soldier but at the same time already being betrothed to a Jewish fellow Bernard, who really loves her. They have a difficult time surviving in constantly having to get through German lines, the necessity of survival even compelling her to act as a show girl in a cabaret for the Germans, and this is just the beginning of all the intrigues, gradually amounting to an overwhelming tragedy with many casualties. Roy Scheider makes a brief appearance as a rabbi marrying her and Bernard, accentuating the Jewish part of the drama; and thus the many and complicated human ingredients serve to elevate this drama far beyond being just a war film. The poet's mother plays a significant part also, taking the part of her son against his father the general, accepting his Jewish love without hesitation. Poetry and humanity transcending the cruelties and inhumanities of war - this film could be viewed as a parallel story to Polanski's "The Pianist",l while at the same time there is some Douglas Sirk mood over the whole thing.

The Poet is a drama film starring Colm Feore, Roy Scheider, Kim Coates and Daryl Hannah. It was written by Jack Crystal and directed by Damian Lee. It was released in the United States as Hearts of War.At the dawn of World War II, a rabbi's daughter and a disenchanted German soldier fall in love and are separated by the war. They struggle on a perilous journey to find one another.

A young German officer and the daughter of a Rabbi find their blooming relationship threatened by the onset of World War II in director Damian Lee's emotional war romance. The setting is German occupied Poland, and Europe is finally feeling the full devastation of Hitler's might. German Officer Oskar and his Jewish girlfriend Rachel are deeply in love, but tragically torn apart by the violent village massacres that spread like a plague across the land. Convinced that she will never be reunited with her true love, expectant mother Rachel reluctantly marries respectable Jewish man Bernard, who longs to earn her love by raising her child as his own. Later, when Rachel and Oskar unexpectedly cross paths amidst the violence of the Russian front line, a sudden tragedy prompts one man to make the ultimate sacrifice.

This account of the World War II star-crossed love between a rabbi's daughter and a war-hating officer wants very much to be taken seriously. Unfortunately,this proves impossible, since the script, casting and wartime atmosphere play as pure make-believe.Also,the audience is herded from cliché to unintentional farce to insult-to-its-intelligence movie that should have been thought carefully before made.